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diff --git a/essays/some_objections.otx b/essays/some_objections.otx index 9a34fd3..6ab72a5 100644 --- a/essays/some_objections.otx +++ b/essays/some_objections.otx @@ -3,8 +3,8 @@ % \fancyhead{} \fancyfoot{} \fancyfoot[LE,RO]{\thepage} % \fancyhead[LE]{{\caps Philosophy}} \fancyhead[RO]{\textit{Some Objections to my Philosophy}} -% TODO make "wide"? we probably want counters -\begitems\style A +\begitems\style A\unstep\itemskipamount=1em + * The predominant attitude toward philosophical questions in educated circles today derives from the later Wittgenstein. Consider the philosopher's question of whether other people have minds. The Wittgensteinian attitude is that in ordinary usage, statements which imply that other people have minds are not problematic. Everybody knows that other people have minds. To doubt that other people have minds, as a philosopher might do, is simply to misuse ordinary language.\fnote{See \booktitle{Philosophical Investigations}, \S 420.} Statements which imply that other people have minds works perfectly well in the context for which they were intended. When philosophers find these statements problematic, it is because they subject the statements to criticism by logical standards which are irrelevant and extraneous to ordinary usage.\fnote{\S \S 402, 412, 119, 116.} For Wittgenstein, the existence of God, immortal souls, other minds, and the Empire State Building (when I am not looking at it) are all things which everybody knows; things which it is impossible to doubt \dq{in a real case.}\fnote{\S 303, Iliv. For Wittgenstein's theism, see Norman Malcolm's memoir.} The proper use of language admits of no alternative to belief in God; atheism is just a mistake in the use of language. |